sandy - I'm glad you're staying onboard. Anemic bass is almost always caused by power limits of the amp. The JC5 is a monster, by a legendary designer. Sounds like we should add it to "the list", yes?
Thiel Owners
Guys-
I just scored a sweet pair of CS 2.4SE loudspeakers. Anyone else currently or previously owned this model?
Owners of the CS 2.4 or CS 2.7 are free to chime in as well. Thiel are excellent w/ both tubed or solid-state gear!
Keep me posted & Happy Listening!
I just scored a sweet pair of CS 2.4SE loudspeakers. Anyone else currently or previously owned this model?
Owners of the CS 2.4 or CS 2.7 are free to chime in as well. Thiel are excellent w/ both tubed or solid-state gear!
Keep me posted & Happy Listening!
13,729 responses Add your response
We have a company out here that takes all the pain out of packing and shipping big speakers. They work with the Museums in SF, so they are the best and of course expensive. Would not trust any other movers. At least 2grand to ship to east coast. And of course money seems not to be an object here in the home of Facebook, Google etc. so selling used equipment is a bit of a struggle. |
sandy, I put up mine favouring local sale, but it was actually easier to sell them non-locally as I got a lot of interest from people all over. As it was made clear in my ad hat buyer pays shipping everyone inquiring knew this and many wanted to arrange that the speakers were shipped to them. So in a way I see the willingness to ship speakers should open up the number of offers. Most people wouldn’t expect shipping to be included in the prIce. All that said, I’m done buying/selling big speakers as they are a pain to ship. |
dan - no need for intimidation . . . I'm the "other Thiel". My brother Jim was the design engineer who was fluent in all matters technical. I was the manufacturing guy who built the product and production systems. Although I am conversant in the technicalities, I am not an audio engineer and am here to learn from you guys and develop a possible path for upgrade of classic products. That upgrade project is behind schedule. It is likely that the first real product to emerge will be beetlemania's CS2.4s. I am cutting my teeth on PowerPoints and CS2 2s and have recently bought a pair of 3.6s. The 1.6, 6.1 and 7.2 are also on my radar. These each represent the terminal expression of their model form before the x.7 series, which could also benefit from upgraded caps, coils and resistors, but they are comparatively new and functionally current, and therefore last on the list. Regarding your question about which big Thiel, I think either the 6.1 or 7.2 are strong. Both have upgrade potential via better caps, foil coils and Mills resistors. Both are extremely amplifier demanding with impedance around 3 ohms over most of the range. FYI, those were both officially replaced by the 3.7, but the back-story may shed some light. Jim was dying and Thiel needed to streamline its offerings, since all the pre x.7 were manufactured in-house. The obsoleted products still had performance viability, but the company chose to shift the x.7 XO and driver manufacturing to China for production viability. If anyone has sixes or sevens, we would have to reverse engineer the crossovers which I can do from photos and/or a loaner crossover. By the time we get to those models, we'll have clear ideas of what to replace with what. |
Hi all it's been some time since I chimed in, I try to have something relevant to bring to the table and will admit i'm flat out intimidated. What other forum has ther own in house designer engineer (Tom Thiel) I love the idea of creating a list of Thiel friendly amps, especially tube amps as they baffle me with there ability at a fraction of the wpc of Solid state. To the gentleman looking at the large Cary Solid states those are a no go they cant operate in the lower impedance levels our Thiel need. I was told by Cary them selves there SI 300 Intergrated works fantastic on them and is very reasonably priced, It also has one hell of a Pre amp & Dac, I finally installed my all Thiel HT/2ch room two weeks ago and ended up with a classe 5300for the 2.7 mains, MCS1 center and 1.7 rears, I highly recommend the larger Classe amps, The four power point 1.2 are powered with PS audio mew 700 mono class D. But what brought it all together was a Lyngdorf processor with room perfect and made integrating 2 thiel SS2 subs in stereo up front with the 2.7's in two channel it is the best I have heard them. It also runs an SVS 16 ultra in rear corner in LFE for effects and isn't used for two channel. I digest all my 2 channel music through Tidal, Deezer, Spotify hi res addition and have a blue sound that is utilizing the much better Dac in the Lyngdorf. I loved the silent back round of the Lyngdorf and the ease of sub integration that I bought there 3400 2ch intergrated for my 3,7;s I couldn't be more pleased, absolutely magic, I now want to know which of the really large Thiel speakers I would enjoy. Tom what a you hot rodding first? I owe the the members of this thread and look forward to the day i can bring more to the table. There is magic happening with state of the art room/speaker correction combined with true digital amps matched with good Dac and music streamer with tidal MQA files are Nirvana . |
sandy - I am very interested in hearing your thoughts when you do add the SS-2 subs. The JC-5 is, I believe, the work of John Curl: one of the greats. cat - In addition to the mid, the eq also drives the woofer beyond linear excursion and, believe it or not, the bottom of the tweeter is boosted by the eq . . . just a little, but it precedes Thiel's ultra long excursion drivers. Everything matters. |
Interesting comments Tom concerning the use of subs with 3.5s without the equalizer in circuit. That’s exactly how I run mine now - dual subs actually - and I’m thrilled with the result. This allows me to do real justice to more powerful recordings without worrying about the stress on the vulnerable mid-range drivers. I takes a bit of fine tuning to get everything balanced, but well worth it. I’m actually resting my 3.5s at the moment and am running my Quad 57s. What these help to confirm is how good that 3.5 mid-range is. It’s certainly not disgraced by the Quads. |
So day one with the Parasound JC5 with my CS3.7’s using the my new Oppo 205. Absolutely opened up the bass and without using my SS2.2. I dont impress easily. I’m amazed. Previously have used a Mac 452 as well as the 601’s and the JC1’s. The JC5’s blows them away. Maybe the Oppo 205 which is new as of last week, is making the difference. But the PS Direct stream is no slouch. I almost don’t need the SS2.2 with the P05x, that has the 3.7 and 2.4 as rears calibrated in them. Just bought a pair of Pioneer /TAD S-3ex . Pretty cool, huge bass. My living room looks like a showroom!! |
unsound - Oh. Let's try again. I have no experience with Roon, although I am using 24x192 digital downloads through my Metric Halo D-A to lovely effect. The model 3 up to the 3.5 was designed for equalization, which does some things well, but runs out of air-moving capacity sooner than the passive radiators. Regarding room placement, we must be careful. Room correction modifies the output into the entire room to optimize at the sole listening spot, which messes with the power response and ambient energy of the room. I can often sound somehow wrong. Regarding placement near the back wall, yes it boosts the bass and requires less woofer output. But the downside is that wall placement couples strongly to some room modes creating associated sonic problems. Also, a potentially destructive reflection pattern occurs. The ear-brain tries to resolve-combine any sound sooner than about 5 milliseconds from the original sound, resulting in time smear. After 5mS±, the reflection is heard as a reflection and cognitively integrates as such, causing little to no distress. In round numbers, about 3' from the wall gives ample time for the back-bounce to trail the direct sound for good listening. All in all, I am not a fan of placing speakers close to a wall. As an aside, the PowerPoint gets the wall reinforcement advantage with no bounce via its 45 degree launch plane from the ceiling (etc.) It works. If I were trying to use 3.5s in a large room or loud levels or bass-heavy material, I would try for a subwoofer, crossed over without the equalizer, with appropriate matching 2nd order slopes and physical placement-alignment. That would really give it new life. BTW, the 3.5 was the last product to have 1% double bypass caps around the 1mF tin foil / styrene film caps and 6-9s super coils. If the 3.5 sand cast resistors were replaced with Mills MRA-12s, the result would be very sweet indeed. |
unsound - Indeed the matter is not simple; it requires some study to understand. One good article from Benchmark is available on the web. https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/speaker-efficiency-and-amplifier-power There are other good articles and texts to study. The relationship between voltage and power sensitivities produces a large array of interrelated results in the speaker and power amp. The common way to specify the sensitivity of a speaker is to state both aspects: voltage and current ie, 88dB @2.83volts @ 4 ohms. As was said previously, that voltage sensitivity would be (-3dB) or 85dB IF it were at 8 ohms, but it is not. And those two speakers ( 4 and 8 ohms) will act differently from each other in many regards and require amplifiers with different characteristics than each other. Jim Thiel didn't make low-impedance speakers to torture amplifiers or listeners; there are practical limitations of physics. He chose underhung motors which require a 2-layer coil to remain short enough to get the significant low-distortion advantages of the topology. That coil requires a wider magnetic gap. Even with huge magnets, the maximum efficiency of that driver is lower (half) than a normal overhung motor. Given the point of diminishing returns of that topology, the maximum impedance of that driver is established. More wire turns (higher impedance) yields lower linear excursion and higher mass for lower efficiency. And so forth. So the driver parameters settle where they settle. Then, Jim chose to balance, compensate and correct many anomalies of driver response over a very wide operating range necessitated by the 1st order slopes. Each correction element lowers impedance further. And in the end, the impedance is maddeningly low. Jim's rationale was that amplifiers can be found to drive low impedance loads whereas the speaker constraints (described above) are immutable. Focused gaps and rare-earth magnet geometries were all applied to raise base efficiency as much as possible. Thiel drivers are far more sophisticated than the vast majority of drivers in the marketplace, and their distortion performance is an order of magnitude better. I guess the low impedance is a price we pay. I direct you to the Benchmark or other articles to explicate the relationship between voltage and power. Once the relationship is understood, the rating scheme becomes more clear. |
All this talk of amplifier power got me curious so I checked the measurements of some of the stereophile reviews. The 3.7s have a minimum of 2.4 ohms which is pretty low but they are also pretty sensitive so overall the are a difficult load but not exceptionally so. The 2 2s are actually not that difficult of a load with a minimum 3.5 ohms impedance. This is in line with my experience as I have found that they do fine with a Yamaha Home theater receiver. I'm sure more would be better but they're pretty darn good this way. I can see why the 7.2 would be an amp killer since it's a tough load impedance wise and also has low sensitivity at 85db. https://www.stereophile.com/content/thiel-cs37-loudspeaker-measurements https://www.stereophile.com/content/thiel-cs2-2-loudspeaker-measurements https://www.stereophile.com/content/thiel-cs24-loudspeaker-measurementshttps://www.stereophile.com/content/thiel-cs72-loudspeaker-measurements |
Todd - you address a core but obscure point. What is the job of the hi-fi component? It is far from agreed that each component should faithfully reproduce its input signal. Most components editorialize in various ways and require the user to mix and stir the playback system to taste. The other end of that chain is that most recording is considerably editorialized and often with a bias toward adequate performance for MP3 or car radio. So the soup is nearly impossible to decipher. As you know, Thiel stood squarely and obstinately in the 'reproduce the input' camp. In that camp, the vagaries of the recording venue and performance are squarely in the recordist camp. My present work, which is making slow progress, is to further purify the precision of Thiel speakers reproducing their input signal. Cheers, Tom |
I think we tend to forget about the vagaries of an actual acoustical presentation and the coloration endowed by the hall. For instance, my wife and I attended a solo piano recital a couple of nights ago. We knew the hall, we knew the performer, and it was one of two Steinways used in the hall, both of which we also knew. But there are contingencies--audience size, hall size, curtain across back of hall open or closed, the way the pianist voiced (not to mention the way the piano tuner voiced the piano), seat location, all kinds of variables. These all affect how we hear, in real live music, qualities such as attack, decay, envelope, stage, etc. that we as audiophiles use in evaluating components. But what was very nice was when, a day later, I put on a cd of Peter Serkin playing some Wolpe , Lieberson, et al. It was just like being back in the hall. That's what the 3.7s do for me. |
@tomthiel I would love to see such a list of ’best Thiel amps’. While I’ve had SS amps of various types, including the Bryston 4B SST for a while (driving various speakers, including Thiel CS6), I’m ultimately a tube amp guy. So my addition to the list would be something like my Conrad Johnson Premier 12 mono blocks. 140W/side of push-pull tube power. There hasn’t been a speaker these can’t drive to satisfaction, and they were heaven with the Thiel CS6, 3.7 and now 2.7. Way back in 90’s and early 2000s, although I’d heard and admired Thiel speakers for years and admired them, it was hearing CS6s driven by VAC tube amps at an old CES that started my Official Thiel Fever. "Thiels and tubes, never thought of it!" The VAC were to rich for my blood, but I managed to mostly replicate the magic using the CJ amps. (My Pal has a vinyl set up with great speakers and he usually uses a Audio Research tube amp with a tube pre-amp. He got a bit sick of the hassle of tubes, bought a new Bryston amp, and he's very happy. But for me his system has taken a distinct step backward to a harder, less organic and listenable sound from what he had before. Just goes to show how subjective this is). |
I’m sitting here listening to vinyl on my 2.7s (Eddie Kendrick collection, among many others I’ve spun today) and the sound is so smooth, even, spacious, yet focused and punchy. That palpability the Thiels do is so mesmerizing, like a drum kit and bass have just taken up residence between the speakers, . I sure loved the 3.7s, but often really appreciate that extra bit of kick and density I get from the 2.7s, right were the bass guitar and kick drum live. |
Great read Dave! The 2.4's are truly very special speakers and they are a bit picky with amps and setup. Once you have them dialed in, you are rewarded many times over though. Another addition to the 2.4's which I'm just scratching the surface on right is is the addition of a Thiel SmartSub. I'm using a Thiel Integrator and crossing the speakers at 50Hz to a SS2. The improvement (of the 2.4's!) was just remarkable. It took everything to another level. I think I can live happily with these speakers for as long as I can make them run (or rather, as long as Rob Gillum has parts for them!) Let me know how the new caps workout for you. I've been contemplating doing exactly the same upgrade to my 2.4's. |
My audio journey continued part 2... I pulled the trigger on the 2.4s. About 15 minutes from me, who would have thought in a Rochester , NY suburb? Turns out the oak finish looks great in my great room. Probably not the final location tho' Then i immediately ordered the outrigger stands and the boutique caps for them from Rob Gillum. The stands really anchor the speaks to the hardwoods plus they look fantastic, there is nothing like superior aftermarket products made by artisans. Haven't had the time to install the caps but soon!! I found a local CL Adcom 545 GFA II for good price while i researched what amplification to use. Immediate gratification got the best of me. The Adcom was disappointing tho'. Really bright with loss of definition with complex sounds like high hat/cymbals/triangle. Kind of congested too. Bass not too bad to just not focused ,detailed, or deep. I became worried about buying a power amp that would worsen the brightness since the Adcom was so harsh. That fear drove me to look at tubes and tube-like solid state. But Rob Gillum uses a Bryston in his chain. Another adviser had said Brystons are very bright amps. But tube like power amps (Classe or Pass) were out of the 2-3k range. That conflict was resolved when I found a Bryston B4 SST^2 on audiogon. Bought it, got it, set it up, one channel dead. Back to Bryston US. Fixed by resetting circuit board, no charge. A great company. The Meat: WOW! Easy to describe difference. Highs nicely balanced, not bright. Soundstage deep now and just as wide. Every instrument and voice has a precise place now.The soundstage developed layers front to back. Detailed detailed detailed sound, just wonderful. There is just so much air in front of me! Bass is just ,,, i guess the current word used now is controlled. not really extended but now the bass drum is effortlessly presented with no sense of strain or limit, it is clearly separated from the bass guitar now. That's it for now. Proceed CDP, Bryston SST2, Thiel 2.4. Getting there! i'll letcha know what other stuff iI find. Dave |
